


Five Times John Winchester Didn't Go To Prison

by Baylor



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Family, Gen, Hunting, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baylor/pseuds/Baylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Some lines are taken directly or paraphrased from the episodes “Scarecrow,” “Shadow,” “Salvation,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The soft lady with the fuzzy sweater and the chewy cookies and the gentle voice keeps asking Dean funny questions like, _Did Daddy ever hit Mommy?_ and _Did Daddy ever hurt you or Sammy?_ but Dean doesn’t know what to say to a question like that, because Daddies don’t hurt people and they don’t hit Mommies and now his Mommy has burned up and they can never go home because home was burned up and there’s a big funny feeling inside of Dean. He doesn’t know what to say to the soft lady, so instead he eats her cookies with one hand and keeps his other hand on top of Sammy in the baby seat, just to make sure Sammy is safe. 

Dean can hear Daddy yelling in another room, yelling things that don’t make any more sense than the soft lady’s questions, things like, _You think I burned my wife? That I would hurt my Mary?_ and then Daddy’s crying and saying, _My kids were in that house!_ and, _I want to see my boys!_ and Dean thinks they’ll get to leave with Daddy now but instead the soft lady picks up Sammy’s baby seat and takes Dean’s hand and says they’re going to take a little ride now. Dean wants to tell her that he doesn’t want to take a ride, he wants to go home with Daddy, he wants Mommy back, he wants her to put Sammy down, but the big funny feeling has moved up into his mouth and it steals all his words so they won’t come out, so he takes her hand and goes with her, because she has Sammy and Daddy says, _Watch out for Sammy, that’s what big brothers do, watch out for little brothers, that’s their job._

As they leave, Dean can hear Daddy crying, and he knows that another bad thing has happened, and he wonders if the bad things will ever end now.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam isn’t all that surprised when instead of Dad coming home from the hunt police officers show up at the door instead. He’s 10, after all, not retarded, so how could this come as a surprise? Dean’s old enough to know better but he throws a fit anyway and gets taken away in the back of a police car after he punches the social worker in the face and kicks the officer in the balls after the social worker said they were going different places for the night. Dean’s not retarded, either, but Dad says sometimes that boy just has to learn things the hard way.

They call the place they take Sam a home, but it doesn’t look like any home Sam’s known, no matter how crappy they were. The biggest kid there gives Sam a black eye on the first night, but then Sam kicks out his front teeth, and no one bothers him after that. 

It takes Pastor Jim three days to pick him up, and Dean throws another fit about the black eye, even though he has a split lip and raw knuckles himself. Pastor Jim has seen Dad and it all sums up to one word -- shapeshifter. Sam doesn’t want to say he isn’t all that surprised, because what did they think was going to happen to Dad some day anyway and at least he wasn’t dead, but he doesn’t dare because Dean is wrecked, angry and crushed and torn apart and learning the hard way. 

They go home with Pastor Jim after a few weeks, even though Minnesota is a long way from California, because the only other place to go is foster care and Dad said, _No, Jim, not that, anything but that_. So they move into the tiny parsonage and Sam goes to the little elementary school next to the church and wears a tie every day and Pastor Jim teaches his class catechism once a week and history three times a week. Dean hates the public high school and his hates Minnesota and most of all he hates not being with Dad. Sam doesn’t dare to say it, but the day Dad gets life without possibility of parole, when Pastor Jim tucks him in that night and turns out the light, snug in his own bed, in a safe house, knowing everything that he will do the next day and the day after that and all the days that Sam can see ahead, he’s more than a little bit happy.


	3. Chapter 3

"Dad, this is without a doubt the dumbest, craziest thing we've ever done, and that's in a long-storied career of dumb and crazy things," Dean whispers.

Dad half-turns from his spot in line ahead of Dean. "Calm down," he murmurs. "It's all part of the plan."

At the front of the line, guards are checking each orange jumpsuit-clad inmate before they're let out into the yard. Dean has never had so much not-fun-at-all in his life.

"Look," Dad says in what Dean supposes is meant to be a reassuring manner, "all we gotta do is find this ghost and put the sucker down."

"Yeah, right, then we'll just grab ourselves a couple of teardrop tattoos," Dean answers. "It's all cool."

Dad's mouth twitches. "See, you're getting it, son," he says over his shoulder.

"That's not funny," Dean hisses. He won't say it, because using the name these days is asking for a whole can of trouble and seeing as how Dad has them in prison and all, Dean figures he has enough trouble right now, but he can't stop thinking about what a no-holds-barred, full-on hissy fit Sam is going to have someday when he hears about this. Assuming Dean makes it out tell the tale.

In front of him, Dean can tell Dad is grinning just from the set of his shoulders.

"Don't worry, Dean, I promise I won't trade you for smokes," he whispers over his shoulder.

Such a giant hissy fit when Dean finally tells him about this one.


	4. Chapter 4

John sighs before he picks up the phone, because Sam has that face on, the one Dean calls his bitchface, and this really isn’t how John had hoped things would go for him and Sam.

“Hi, Sam,” he says.

“Oh, hey, Dad, how’s prison?” Sam practically hisses. John closes his eyes and offers up a brief prayer for forbearance. 

“Look, Sam, I was hoping to be out of here before you and Dean had to worry about it,” he says, which is the truth.

“Be out of here?” Sam demands. His knuckles are white around the phone. “You’re in federal prison for credit card fraud, Dad!”

“I know where I am, son,” John answers, and he can hear the edge in his own voice.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Sam ground out. “We didn’t know where you were, if you were okay. You could have been dead or hurt or held captive or --”

“In prison,” John says dryly. “I know, I didn’t mean to make you worry. I just wanted you boys kept clear of this.”

“Well, good work there, Dad,” Sam snarls. “Guess why Dean didn’t come to see you? Because there’s warrants all over the country for him for _credit card fraud_ committed with his _felonious father-partner_. I left school, Dad. We’ve been driving all over hell and back trying to find out what happened to you, not knowing if you were dead or alive, and you’re in _freaking federal prison_.”

Sam is so mad for a moment that he can’t speak and just sputters on the other end of the phone. John is glad for the glass between them. When Sam has subsided to heavy breathing, John wipes a hand across his face.

“Listen, Sammy, I’m sorry you boys have been so worried. I knew you were together, though, so I figured you were safe.” He pauses, takes a shaky breath. “I know what happened to your girlfriend. I’m so sorry. I would’ve done anything to protect you from that.”

Sam deflates and for a minute he looks like John’s baby boy again. He swallows hard and nods, can’t seem to get any words out. John smiles sadly.

“Last time we were together, we had one hell of a fight,” he says, and now Sam answers with a shaky, “Yes, sir.”

“It’s good to see you again,” and John means it, really really means it. “It’s been a long time.”

“Too long,” Sam answers, and now John hates the glass between them more than anything in the world. Even through it, he can see the tears in Sam’s eyes, knows that Sam can see his.

When he feels steady again, he leans forward and says, “Now about getting me out of here...”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean can’t stop crying, and he can’t let go of Sam, and finally one of the paramedics gives him a shot in the arm so that after a while he lets them pull him up off the floor and wrap a blanket around him and lead him outside, toward the waiting ambulance. Dean guesses that the ambulance is there for him, because it sure as hell isn’t going to do Sam any good, and there’s a stretcher with a black bag on top of it going into the cabin now and that -- now that is for Sam, and the thought makes hysterical laughter bubble out of him, all crazed and shaky sounding, but then, Dean is all crazed and shaky right now.

There’s about a gazillion cop cars and uniforms and flashing lights outside and Dean didn’t even realize that it was daylight now, has no idea how long he knelt on the floor and would not let go. He sees a guy in a suit handling the Colt, now in a giant plastic baggie marked “EVIDENCE.” A couple of guys in jackets marked “CSI” have popped the Impala’s trunk and are pulling things out of the weapons locker, and normally Dean would be going ballistic, but that shot must have been good stuff, because he really doesn’t care in the least right now what they do with the Impala, especially not when he catches sight of Dad, leaning against a cop car in handcuffs, guarded by two uniforms. Dad looks up as Dean goes by, his face wet, his eyes red.

 _Why, Dad, why?_ Dean thinks he asks, but he’s not sure, and Dad hadn’t answered before, when Dean had screamed it over and over again until his throat was raw. 

He answers now, though, just before the ambulance doors shut behind Dean.

“I just wanted it to be over.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some lines are taken directly or paraphrased from the episodes “Scarecrow,” “Shadow,” “Salvation,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”


End file.
